@LoveTheBard I mainly find them from the visit page on what ever college I am interested.
I never visited the college I graduated from. My wife never visited the college she graduated from. My kids never visited the schools they graduated from. We were all very happy with our schools.
Visiting a college is very helpful - be sure to do more than just the campus tour, too. Helps you develop a good idea of what the school’s about, from how they sugar-coat things to how school life is run, etc.
$10k is way too much though. Ideally you’ll only want to visit some of your top 10, top 5 picks from research (imo).
$10k pays for a year of room and board at some colleges.
We visited one school as a side trip on a family vacation with D1, and three with D2 on a family trip a couple years later. All the other visits have been local or after acceptances (mostly scholarship interviews). Even on the dedicated college visit trips (with just one parent along) we’ve made a point of doing some sightseeing in the area of the college. Just on those short trips to visit a particular college, we’ve had some fun, won a couple of big scholarships, lost a couple others, visited a civil war battlefield and a very old post office, the Alamo, and some amazing graffiti, and a tree growing in the middle of the highway in the middle of nowhere, and had fantastic pizza. And even if you include the total cost of those two big family vacations that happened to include college visits, I think we’ve spent less than $10k over two kids.
We did a trip to Ohio recently to visit several schools (we’re in Illinois). We saw Earlham (in Indiana, just across the state line), Denison, Kenyon, Wooster, Case Western, and Oberlin. All in three days :-). A bit rushed, but doable.
We only had things scheduled at a couple of the schools, the others we just intended to do a quick visit. At a couple, we got there just as a tour was starting, so we joined in. At another, we got there about half an hour before the admission office closed, but someone there was willing to give us a tour (their suggestion!), so we did that. At another, no guided tour, but we got a map and did our own tour, and stopped in the library and had an extended chat with someone working there. (For a quick visit, a tour is probably more valuable than an info session, for which most of the info can be found online.)
BTW, these schools know people are visiting several of them – at a few of them, they had sheets with directions to the other schools, they often asked where we had come from and where we were going next. Kind of like Santa in A Miracle on 34th Street :-).
As others have stated, visits can give you a feel for the school, the campus, and the students (if it’s in session – always better, especially for smaller schools). It shows interest, something that’s important for many schools (you can view a school’s CDS to see how important they rate that). And if you visit nearby schools of different kinds (e.g., big/small, public/private, LAC/research university), you can get a sense for what your child likes.
Although, sometimes that isn’t so clear. For instance, on this trip, my son liked Earlham, Wooster, Case, and Oberlin, but not Denison and Kenyon. It might not be so clear what distinguishes them, to some degree these schools are similar (well, not Case). But it was something about the students there, and the activities (there’ll be flyers up advertising them), that gave my son a sense that he’d fit in there, and be able to talk to and have fun with the people there.
Sorry to hijack the thread a bit, but I’m getting a little concerned that it’s not going to be easy for us to do further visits. We’ve visited about a dozen schools now, almost all the schools within about 500 miles of home that might make my son’s list (he’s a junior). But there are still several farther away that we’d like to visit – some on the west coast, and some in the northeast. We might be able to do a trip this summer to see some of them – but the schools won’t be in session. If anyone has suggestions on how to deal with this, I’d appreciate hearing them. (We will do things like visit/get info online and read college info books; the fact that we’ve already visited several schools should allow those to be more productive/useful.)
@csdad2 Sometimes you can find videos on youtube both official and unofficial. For example, kind of in your neck of the woods, Lawrence University has a whole range of great videos.
Also, either look on the college websites or contact the colleges directly to see if a rep will be in your area for college fairs - a good way to show interest and ask questions.
I agree its much better to visit when college is in session. Depending on when your son’s school starts in August/September, you might be able to squeeze in some visits to colleges that start up before the high school academic year begins. My kids started after Labor Day so late August was a good time to look at more colleges. Good luck with the process! it sounds like you’ve had a great, informed start.
I’m all for visiting all school we can drive to but not willing to fly out to more than three reach schools. My son wants to apply to at least 20 Ivy and LAC, which are scattered all over the country. To be frank though he is a high performing student, we all know that these schools are a long shot like hitting a jackpot so odds are slim.
At least 20? Let’s hope that number declines for your and his sake.
@homerdog " Which schools did you visit in OH? I think we may end up with a roadtrip there and would love your itinerary! We are mostly looking at LACs there…"
Are you searching for your dancer? If so at her age I wouldn’t concern myself with specific colleges rather those with varying characteristics. Large public colleges, rural colleges, urban colleges, LACs etc. The nice thing about Ohio is that there are a lot of colleges and different types of colleges and for the most part it can be done reasonably cheaply. Visit an LAC such as Oberlin, Kenyon or Denison, a large state flagship such as OSU, a private urban research university such as Case Western etc. and as a future safety for someone who might want to continue dancing, Ohio University, a mid sized public college town type with a very LAC feel. You could easily visit OSU, Denison (or Kenyon) and OU in a couple days and Case and Oberlin in another. There are others to recommend but these would give you a variety of types and be doable in a few days. Your child may find they like the atmosphere of a large university or the options of a mid sized public or private research university. She may want the small LAC feel but decide that rather than a rural campus she would rather be near a larger city. As she gets older she’ll begin to refine what she likes and what her interests are and then your visits can get more specific. Enjoy.
@lvvcsf . Too early for dancer daughter to look at schools. 
We have a son who will be a sophomore next year and I think a trip to Kenyon, Denison, Oberlin, and Case would be helpful for him. Trying to figure out other “neighborhoods” will be good to visit too.
Davidson and Wake on the same trip.
American, GW, University of Richmond, University of Maryland, William and Mary in DC.
NE seems a little tougher. We will need to look at schools more closely and decide what city that trip originates from - probably either Philly or Boston.
Maybe IU and then drive to Nashville for Rhodes and Vanderbilt.
I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Excited though too. How early is too early to look at schools? Summer after sophomore year too early? We’re thinking maybe starting then.
No summer before junior year is great! You have time so you don’t have to take it all so seriously but you’ll be paying attention. Neither of my children looked at LACs so I mostly know the schools by reputation. Oberlin is typically known as the most “progressive” of Ohio’s LACs, Kenyon one of the prettiest. Denison is working to raise it’s reputation to the level of the other two and is known for decent merit aid. All are going to be fairly small town rural. If you want a sense of what the Kenyon Campus is like rent the movie “Liberal Arts” it was filmed there and the star Josh Radnor was a graduate there. Cute movie too.
@homerdog, I am following your thread about merit aid. Most on CC would tell you that sophomore year is
not too early, but summer is not ideal for visits as there won’t be many students around.
If you make it to Nashville you should consider adding the 2 hour drive to Hendrix College - even if you don’t make the visit - consider it as a super high merit $ school that meets most of your criteria. After acceptance Hendrix will (did this year) offer you $500 in additional merit if your S visits (or visits again). It is a CTCL school.
Maybe we can make a trip right after high school lets out at the end of May. Perhaps one of our trips will have schools still in session. Otherwise, we can move trips up to spring break of soph year (to the disappointment of our daughter who would rather go to a beach for spring break!)
“I am following your thread about merit aid. Most on CC would tell you that sophomore year is
not too early, but summer is not ideal for visits as there won’t be many students around.”
True but it can be a good time to see areas of the country you couldn’t normally visit. Another good time to visit schools is your HSs spring break. They usually occur later than college spring breaks. Be advised that it will be very busy then so book both tours and hotels early (say January). There will be a lot going on then because of spring break and because seniors will be making visits as admitted students to determine their final choices.
Your son wants to apply to over 20 schools? He really needs to pare down that list, and the visit process can be part of that by helping him not only cross some schools off, but also focus on what he’s really looking for. At this point saying “20 Ivy and LAC, which are scattered all over the country” sounds like a prestige list and not a thoughtfully compiled one.
There have been lots of threads here on CC about applying to that many schools. Here’s one: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1707730-how-many-college-applications-are-enough-p1.html. The quality of the application suffers when you do that many, particularly the “why College X” supplements.Also, the wave of rejections can be brutal. My D had a classmate a few years ago who applied to 23 schools. His list was super reach heavy. He got into 2 of 23, and they were match schools. I remember his mom telling me how brutal it was to get that wave of rejections over the course of several weeks.
Note to self, passing on to others: if planning college visits to Ohio, keep in mind that the Republican National Convention will be held in Cleveland, OH, July 18-21. Rooms are booked solid for those dates and for a few days before and after, including Elyria (striking distance of Oberlin) Don’t ask me how I know!
@WorryHurry411 Most of our tours thus far have been add-ons to family vacations and that has kept the cost down. I agree with earlier posters that you can learn a lot by visiting colleges of varying types closer to home to get an idea of what appeals to your kid (urban vs. small town, size of student body, LAC vs. university, etc)
D17 and I will be taking a Midwestern road trip together and are seeing it as a fun excuse to spend time together.
@csdad2 We are going to all of those colleges in August with S18. The whole purpose of our trip is to take S to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. I figured we should add the college tours because I don’t know that we’d have any opportunity to visit Ohio again before S applies. We even extended our trip a day (thanks for free changes Southwest!) so that we can visit Earlham since we looked at their website and it seems perfect for S’s academic interests. We’ll be taking a whole week, though, so that we can add more fun vacation-like activities to the mix.
In case others are interested, the dates for the Ohio Six College tour are 8/1-8/3, conveniently after the Republican Convention. http://www.ohiosixcollegetours.com/